Doohickie

This sentence has never been applicable to Kevyn Adams.

That's an odd take, especially regarding the Eastern Conference. How could you say that the Panthers sweep of the Canes, a team that finished 21 ahead of Florida, is due to seeding?

https://www.diebytheblade.com/kyle-okposo-explains-injury-says-thank-you-in-letter-to-fans/ In fact, it is likely that his leadership style was formed and influenced in the aftermath of his concussion. That's the point about "veteran leadership"... It's not just about how well you play hockey. It's about the experience a veteran player has- all the situations he's been in, all the things he's seen, and how that shapes his approach to the game and to the locker room. Dahlin, Tuch, Cozens, are all leaders in their own way, but they don't have the level of experience that Okposo has. I think it's fair to say that this season will be as much about him shaping Dahlin, Tuch, Cozens and whoever else as it will be about leading the team.

And I think the cancer description is off; it's more that the locker room was fractured into several different factions and all players weren't pulling in the same direction. The players brought in to provide veteran leadership (Gionta, Gorges, etc.) were ignored by the tank fruit in lieu of the bad influences (Kane, Bogo).

He was trying to recover from concussions as the post-concussion meds that almost killed him.

Social media following is a crap metric.

...and a team Tkachuk is very familiar with.

I think your conclusion is based on a false dichotomy.

Amazing game. Wow.

Come over to the quiet side.

Total brain fart. Dahell, man; people expect better out of the captain. Can.... Yes @Thorny, I am. That's how Ignore works 😉

You need to do better in terms of finding a better catch phrase. Come on, the new season will be here before you know it. (As for the rest of your post... I'm not sure how you connected the dots to get your conclusion.)

I trust him, period. No one bats 1.000.

Different issue. Is he perfect? No. Is the team moving in the right direction? Yes.

Let's see how it plays out. It was Kevyn who transformed the team by moving RistoReinoEichel. The returns weren't necessarily better players but it made the team better. Kevyn has his pulse on the team and the players. I don't like it either but I tend to trust Kevyn's judgment here.

He'll keep the C.

1,000 games/600 points He'll be LTIR'd once he hits those and "has a boo boo"

The Sabres hierarchy when Jack was here:

Reminds me of something less malicious that Shawn Burr did in the 1995 Finals (if I'm recalling correctly)... As a member of the Red Wings he was behind the NJ net and collided with one of the Devils, who dropped his stick. He handed the Devil his stick and NJ went down the ice and that Devils player either scored or had an assist on a Devils goal. Burr was basically done in Detroit after that... traded to Tampa in offseason.

When he was a Sabre... he was an ass but he was our ass. Now he's just an ass.

Eichel was the embodiment of the Buffalo curse. When he was sent away, things got better in Buffalo. I'm not saying that Eichel is a bad guy, just that he has a curse over his head. Okay - I have zero memory of that guy. He was a JAG that was only with the team briefly.

Tangent: I know there is W-L record, but are there more sophisticated fancy stats on coaches? Is there any way to quantify which coaches gets the most out of a given roster? I'm thinking maybe a WAR but for coaches, or possibly stats that break down which coaches are better and defense, offense, PK, PP, etc., in such a way that you could somehow minimize the effect of roster on the coach's ratings.

Oh, I change my mind all the time. But sometimes I just don't agree with someone on a given point and that person is rather outspoken on that point and I don't want to have the same discussion/argument again and again.

It has definitely sped up the game (by more than a half hour on average), but surprisingly made game playing times more uniform as well. It's now very common for games that start at the same time to end withing a few minutes of each other. You can now easily fit a baseball game in a 3 hour time window with little chance of it running over. I think having the pitch clock (and batter's box clock) enforced immediately by awarding a ball for an offending pitcher or a strike for an offending batter is particularly satisfying. Immediate, tangible consequences.